Irish singer Sinflix O’connor dies at the age of 56-BBC News

Irish singer and activist Sinanair O’connor has died at the age of 56.

The singer’s family announced the news” with great sadness”, adding that her”family and friends are devastated”.

She was best known for her single Nothing Compares 2 u, released in 1990, which reached number one and brought her worldwide fame.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said her music was”loved all over the world and her talent was unmatched and beyond compare”.

Irish President Michael D Higgins praised O’connor’s” authenticity “as well as her”beautiful and unique voice”.

“What Ireland has lost at such a relatively young age is one of our greatest and most talented composers, composers and performers of recent decades, one who had a unique talent and extraordinary connection with her audience, all of whom held such affection and warmth for her,” he said.

Born Sinead Marie Bernadette O’connor in Glenageary, County Dublin, in December 1966, the singer had a difficult childhood.

As a teenager, she was placed in Dublin’s An Grianan Training Centre, once one of the famous Magdalene laundries, originally designed to imprison young girls deemed promiscuous.

A nun bought her a guitar and placed it with a music teacher – which led to the beginning of O’connor’s musical career.

She released her first critically acclaimed album The Lion and the Cobra in 1987, which entered the top 40 in the UK and US.

Tracking it was I did not want what I did not get, which included Nothing Compares 2 U.

Written by Prince, the song reached number one worldwide, including in the US and UK.

O’connor, who was outspoken in her social and political views, released 10 studio albums between 1987 and 2014.

In 1991, she was named Rolling Stone magazine’s artist of the year and received the Brit Award for International Female solo artist.

The following year, one of the most notable events of her career occurred when she ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on the US television show Saturday Night Live, where she was the guest performer.

After an acapella performance of Bob Marley’s War, she looked at the camera and said “fight the real enemy,” a protest against child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Her actions resulted in her being banned for life by broadcaster NBC and protests against her in the US, which saw copies of her recordings destroyed in New York’s Times Square.

“I’m Not Sorry I did it. It was great,” she said in an interview with the New York Times in 2021.

O’connor’s latest album, I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss, was released in 2014.

Converting to Islam in 2018, the Dublin singer changed her name to Shuhada’ Sadaqat, but continued to perform under her birth name. She released a memoir, memories, in 2021.

In January 2022, her 17-year-old son Shane was found dead after being reported missing two days earlier.

Writing on social media after his death, she said he had “decided to end his land war” and demanded “no one follows his example”.

The singer later cancelled all live performances for the rest of 2022 due to her “ongoing grief” following the death of her son.

O’connor paid tribute to Shane in one of her recent posts on tantanitter, calling him “the love of my life, the lamp of my soul, we were one soul in two halves”.

Belfast film director Kathryn Ferguson, one of the last people to speak to O’connor before her death, said she was “devastated” by the news.

Prior to the singer’s death Ferguson had been working on a documentary about O’connor, titled Nothing Compares, which will be released on Saturday.

“Our film really, for me, was a love letter to Sinead. It was done for many, many years,” she told Bbc Radio 4’s front Roflix. “And it was because of the impact she had on me as a young girl growing up in Ireland.

“She’s one of the most radical, incredible musicians we’ve had. And we were very, very lucky to have him.”

Social media was also flooded with tributes to the singer after her death was announced on Wednesday evening.

Singer Alison Moyet O’connor had a “stunning presence”and a voice that”shatters the stone by force from growth”.

“As nice as any girl around & never traded on that card. I loved it for him. Iconoclast.”

Musician Tim Burgess of The Charlatans said: “Sinead was the true embodiment of a punk soul. She did not compromise and this made her life more of a struggle. I hope she finds peace.”

“How she suffered. Poor, poor Sinead. Rest in peace, you amazing, brave, beautiful, unique miracle.”

The Irish Film Director Mark Cousins: “Sinead O’connor was our Wild Irish team. Such a huge part of our imagined life.”

Irish deputy prime minister Micheal Martin said O’connor was one of Ireland’s “greatest musical icons”.

In a statement on Tventitter, he said he was ” devastated to hear about [her] passing through”.

“One of our greatest musical icons, and someone deeply loved by the people of Ireland, and beyond. Our hearts go out to her children, her family, friends and all who knew and loved her.”

No one can sing like Sinead O’connor. Nobody.

Every note of her screamed with naked passion. She turned the Prince’s saccharine Nothing Compares 2 U into an almighty scream of pain and loss.

These emotions were her bedfelloambs. She had a traumatic childhood. Her parents divorced when she was eight, and her mother, who later claimed to have abused her, died in a car accident in 1985.

As a teenager she was arrested for shoplifting and taken to a Magdalene asylum, which she described as a “prison” where “girls cried every day”.

All those terrible experiences, and those that have yet to come, spilled over into her music. I am Stretched on your women is a very beautiful song about love and loss as Three Babies, from her first album, revealed her grief after she had suffered several failed miscarriages.

She also took on other people’s pain. Her successful single, Mandinka, contained references to female genital mutilation. The Black Boys of the 1990s on motorcycles addressed police brutality against black men, two years before the riots left the issue thrust into the spotlight.

Although she was a controversial figure, there was always a softness to her protests. When she tore up a picture of the pope on US television, she was thinking about the victims of abuse, not about her image.

Her later albums contained places invited by her children and anthems for peace and community. Earlier this year, she won a classic album award in Ireland and dedicated it to the country’s refugee community.

Nothing Compares 2 U was the feature: a song that made her famous against her wishes. At heart, she was a protest singer with a voice that wanted to be heard. That’s how we should remember it.